


Fractal Universe

by kittydesade



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen, LGBTQ Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:42:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time Steve wakes up, it's a different turning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractal Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



**Iteration One**  
Time didn't blur the lines of speech, it didn't make everyone sound like chipmunks when it ran backwards or feel hot or cold. Steve blinked and he was there, standing in front of Walter with Marcus next to him, as though nothing had happened.

Except whatever artifact had been used, he remembered it. Which meant the others did too?

Except whatever artifact had been used he seemed to be the only one who remembered. The arm like a steel bar coming over his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. The jab of the needle into the top of his shoulder, feeling the steel tip intrude into muscle. And then feeling the individual muscles that made up his heart and diaphragm and all those little operations you took for granted until they just stopped, feeling those muscles seize up one by one until there was nothing but darkness.

God, what the hell had happened? And why did he remember this?

Steve was so busy trying to figure out how it had all played out the first time that he missed it all playing out again until it was too late, and Walter was rolling out the door, Marcus coming up behind him again with that arm around his chest and lights out, Steve.

* * *

 **Iteration Two**  
They were arriving at the hanger. Walter praised him for a job well done, for getting the coin, blah blah blah. Marcus smiled like he knew a secret, and he didn't realize Steve knew it too. This time Steve slipped his hands into his pockets, casual-like, and he felt something that hadn't been there before. A pocket-watch. So that was the artifact, then.

Pocket watches were all about time, so whatever this was it rewound time and made the events play back again mostly, at least, as they had before. But whoever had the pocket watch or was within its field or something, they were immune to the effects.

"Hey, maybe I'm getting the hang of this artifact stuff," Steve muttered to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Orders came down, the same orders Steve heard twice now. He tried hard not to smile and nod and this time when Marcus came, he was ready for him. He dodged sideways and out of the bigger man's grip, sprinting for the door. The stairs. It didn't matter that his cover was blown right now, they'd taken it about as far as it was going to go, it just mattered that he got out, told Jane what she needed to know. Or Mrs. Frederic, or someone.

He vaulted the stairs by means of the railing and hit the ground hard enough to throw an ankle in a wrong direction, dammit. Limping away wasn't going to cut it.

"Dammit, now he _looks_ like he's been in a fight. Marcus, finish him off before he makes it look worse..."

Sykes' voice came from above him, but Marcus's breath came down hot on his neck. "Sure thing, Mr. Sykes."

Lights out, Steve.

* * *

 **Iteration Three**  
They must not have found the watch. No, he'd taken his hands out of his pockets to run and vault over things and they hadn't searched him. No reason to search him, he didn't have anything of value. This time, whoever found his body (please God let it be Pete and Myka) rewound time a little further, to where he was in the car with Marcus on the way back.

He couldn't help giving the other man sidelong glances, either, at least a few of them. Hard to sit in a car with someone knowing they'd murdered you two, three times?

"What?"

Steve raised his hands. "Nothing, man." Marcus probably was the type to be paranoid and homophobic, too, knowing his luck. Then again they'd worked together for at least a little while without any of that crap. He never thought he'd miss Pete and his antics with the taking off shirts and scarring Steve for life. Right now he missed everyone from Warehouse 13, more than he ever thought he could miss a team.

They kept driving. Off to the hanger. Where Steve had died a couple of different times, and now he started thinking of the team discovering his body, over and over again. How hellish would that be, if they could remember it? He hoped they didn't. Marcus and Sykes kept acting as though they had discovered he was a double agent for the first time. Or maybe they didn't know, maybe they just didn't trust him enough to keep him alive. Either way, they didn't seem like they remembered from jump to jump, so maybe Pete and Myka and whoever else was coming along on this little jaunt didn't, either.

Oh god. Claudia. Had she been the one to find his body, wind the pocket watch and put it in his pocket so when it rewound he would be the one remembering, able to try and stop it? Poor Claude.

"No, seriously, what's wrong with you?" Marcus looked at him sideways. "You look like someone just ran over your dog."

Steve turned his head to the window so Marcus couldn't get as good a look at him anymore. "You ever have one of those days where you just feel like it's never gonna end?" Groundhog Day, that was the name of the movie.

Marcus shook his head, laughing. "Yeah, been through a few of those myself. What, you got a hot date waiting for you at the end of this?"

Now it was Steve's turn to laugh. "God, no, I haven't been on a real date in years. No, just ready for this day to be over, finally..." So they could move on. So he could have another day after it.

They kept driving. Mile after mile of road passed under their wheels, hypnotic and soothing. Deceptively soothing. Steve found himself tensed up to stay awake and alert despite the fact that this trip hadn't been as soporific the last time he'd made it. He thought. He didn't remember it much, they'd sat back and hadn't talked.

"What are you going to do after this?" he asked, looking over at Marcus. Didn't know why his mind went there, just that it suddenly seemed important for him to know.

Marcus looked at him as though he'd lost his mind and shrugged. "Whatever Mr. Sykes tells me to."

He could have said anything. That sounded lonely. Or like a person in need of years of therapy. Then again, Marcus wasn't none too tightly wrapped, himself. Something going on with him that Steve couldn't narrow down, and he wouldn't have time before it all went down again, the same as the last time, only worse.

* * *

 **Iteration Four**  
Steve wondered if they thought of the watch every time they found his body or if whoever was doing it was the only one who knew what was going on. Or if they suspected but didn't know. This time when he opened his eyes he was walking back from shooting the ground by Claudia, and he didn't have to pretend to be uncomfortable and angry and upset. "Let's go."

Marcus gave him a curious look as they circled around the car and got in. Probably because he'd never seen Steve like this, although to Steve it felt like the logical conclusion of several days of hell. Dying over and over again, needing to achieve the mission and failing, or maybe not failing given everything he'd manage to accomplish before that. Warning Claudia, the coin, everything. But the dying part, that, he definitely wanted to avoid. And Marcus had killed him four times, five times? Including the first, five times over and over again.

"What the hell happened to you?" Marcus asked a minute or two after the first mile marker. Steve was down to counting miles and landmarks now, every one of them bringing him closer to the final showdown.

New choice of words, he decided, after getting those two lines of The Final Countdown stuck in his head. "Me? Oh, nothing. I just got sold out by a bunch of people I thought were my friends, twice." Except, shit, Marcus didn't know he knew about that, so he'd have to pretend it was an ATF thing. "Back to back, I just had to shoot a girl I really liked... Not that kind of like, that's disgusting, she's barely over 18. I finally just managed to untangle the rest of my information from when Mrs. Frederic burned me and, oh yeah, I'm at the mercy of a sociopath and his hired gun."

Marcus kept giving him the hairy eyeball. Too much? Yeah, maybe that was too much. "Relax. You're too tense." But the other man's jaw was too tense around those words, too. Steve had done his share of undercover work, he knew when he'd just made someone suspicious.

"Yeah, maybe." Look out the window. Foot up on the dash, no, back down again because that wasn't just uncomfortable, that put him at a disadvantage when it came to fighting or getting out of the car quickly. "I'll be glad when this is over, man."

The seconds ticked by, and he counted them as though he could guess where the difference between normal and concerned and suspicious lag time lay. "Yeah, me too."

Steve glanced at him a couple of times before he figured out how to say it without making Marcus even more suspicious of him. He hoped, anyway. "I'm sorry, man, it's just ..." he laughed, nervous, but that was good, he could be expected to be nervous. "I'm not used to working this side of things, you know?"

Marcus relaxed a little, nodding, which meant he was either dumber than Steve thought or he was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe it was more to the apology than the excuse. "I get it, I do. But Sykes has some good points. I promise, you won't regret it..."

He laughed, hollowed out and exhausted he couldn't manage much more than a short laugh. "You know, every time someone says that I end up deeply regretting it?"

"I know, right?" Marcus chuckled, "It's kind of like that thing where it's supposed to be, anyone who starts a sentence off with 'to tell the truth' is probably a liar."

"Well, to tell the truth..." Steve started, and they both laughed. "Okay, no. Seriously. I'm ... this is heavier stuff than I'm used to. I don't like shooting girls, and I really don't like being the rat."

Marcus's hands clenched on the wheel. Brakes squealed for a second before he thought better of it and kept the car moving. "Being the rat?" he asked, quiet, calm. Steve glanced down and over at the gun beneath his coat. Not just happy to see him.

"Yeah, being the traitor to their side, and, see?" he pointed a finger at Marcus. "That makes you wonder right now, am I going to turn on you? Am I going to ditch you like I ditched them, go to someone else or maybe back to them and tell them everything we're doing here?"

"You're not helping your case any, you know," Marcus said, but his hands relaxed some, enough for the blood to pinken the skin again.

"That's my whole point. I hate that ... that bull. Not ever knowing where you stand with someone, seriously, how many employees and assistants and whatever have you killed for Sykes?"

Marcus didn't say anything. Steve shut up, wondering how big this hole he was digging himself into could get. Maybe big enough to jump out the other side like a magic trick, but more likely he was going to wake up on the other side of another death with a pocket watch in his coat. Again. Assuming they were able to resurrect him this time.

"You are working for them, aren't you."

Steve glanced sideways, but the other man had his eyes on the road and he couldn't tell what he was thinking. Or whether or not to trust him with the truth; for now, he listened to years of experience and decided not to. It did give him something else to go on. "Are you?"

"Why the hell would I be working for those bastards?" Marcus snapped. "They took everything from Walter, and if they had their way on everything they'd..."

Something clicked into place for Steve with the sensation like a snapping rubber band in the back of his brain. Whatever was going on with Marcus, whatever enabled him to do what he did, it was some kind of artifact. And it wasn't just an artifact, it was the life or death kind of artifact, the kind that might be for the Escher vault or the one Claudia called the Dark Vault of Dark Darkness. Or Marcus was just clinging to the one hope of life he had left, Steve told himself. Stop jumping to conclusions that are just going to rattle your nerves even more.

Marcus didn't volunteer any more information, though. Which he kind of understood, if he were dependant on an artifact for survival he wouldn't want to start divulging information to a former agent who might or might not be on his side, either. Didn't make it any easier to talk to him. "Just a question," he shook his head, kept his tone mild and even, eyes front.

Sixth mile marker, and that abandoned tomato stand. They were getting close, and Steve tried not to panic in any way his future murderer could see, no hyperventilating or twitching or grabbing onto things.

"They're not bad people, you know," Steve pointed out. "The agents aren't, at least. They're doing the best they can."

"What, so people like Sykes and... well, other people, can't have a normal life? So they have to live with a crappy hand even when they've got the fix sitting right there in front of them?"

"No, so that people like Sykes don't get hurt messing with something they don't understand." Steve winced when he said it; he might get away with that here in the car, still wasn't something he wanted to tell the wheelchair-bound sociopath in person. "So that people don't play around with ... with a set of juggling balls, get drunk, and do something stupid that results in their death or the deaths of others." Marcus had been a cop, he should know this. "So that someone doesn't pick up a mason jar to use for tips and end up re-creating Night of the Living Dead. So people can't ever use these things to waterboard a person until they cooperate, wipe their mind, control... you see where I'm going with this?"

Whether Marcus did or not, he couldn't tell. They kept driving. "So you think putting all of thse artifacts in the hands of a few people is going to help anything? These people, the same people who burned you for objecting to that waterboarding, remember? If what you told me is true."

"It's true," Steve grated out. "Stukowski could tell you if she was still around."

Marcus grunted, didn't say anything in words but his body language was tight and tense. On the edge, Steve guessed. Just a couple more pushes.

"Yeah, I'm not saying they're perfect. But it's a system in place. You don't change the system by attacking it from the outside, that just..." He shook his head. "You used to be a cop, didn't you ever want to just take everyone in charge and shake them till they saw how things really were?"

Assuming Marcus hadn't been a dirty cop from the beginning. Marcus shook his head, half-smiling, half not looking where he was driving and veering over the lines. Steve reached and grabbed the oh-shit bar just as they straightened out again. "More than you know, man. More than..."

"Yeah. I wanted to, too. Doesn't mean I don't believe in what the Warehouse does. What it should be doing," he amended.

"Mrs. Frederic burned you for that."

"Yeah, she did. Which means she's burned out or she's gotten too ... I don't know what, but she needs to go. Doesn't mean the institution as a whole needs to be brought down."

Marcus brought his head up again, started to say something, then didn't. His fingers opened and then clenched on the steering wheel. "You really think you could have changed that place from the inside out, made it ..." But he didn't seem to know what he wanted, what he thought Steve could do, hell, Steve didn't know what he was even talking about. Just killing time.

"I thought it was worth doing. The job was worth doing. I still do."

Marcus worked his jaw until it popped, audible and loud in the confines of the car. They came up to the first sign for the airport, passed it, then passed the second. Steve pointed at it as it went past. "Um, that was..."

"Shut up. I'm trying to think."

And they kept driving.


End file.
